Biographies: "Uncle Bill" Jones, 1958, Winn Parish, LA
This information generously donated to the Louisiana Genealogy Project - African American Archives by: Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483
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From: May 29, 1958 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American
(H. B. Bozeman articles reprinted with permission granted me by Mr. Estes
Bozeman)
Winn Parish As I Have Known It
by H. B. Bozeman
Article No. 86
The recent death of Matt Jones Dodson, a respected colored woman who lived all
her life of 85 years in Winnfield, has brought back memories to me of many
other colored men and women of Winnfield during the past 50 years.
Her parents, "Uncle" Bill and "Aunt" Emma Jones from Civil War days until
their deaths, lived useful and honorable lives that commanded the respect from
both white and black here in Winnfield.
"Uncle" Bill Jones during the Civil War served with the Confederate army.
This was rather unusual for a Negro slave. However, he was as proud of his
Confederate army service as any white Confederate veteran.
"Uncle" Bill Jones was always on hand for the annual Confederate reunion of
the Winn Parish veterans every year.
What "Uncle" Bill's actual status in the Confederate army was, I don't know.
He said he was a 16 year old boy when he went to the war as 'body servant' for
his master, who was a captain. He said after the Battle of Mansfield and the
Confederate forces were pushing the remnants of Banks' defeated army back down
the Red River valley, on both sides of the river, his captain "got short
handed" for soldiers. Bill said one day the captain said, "Come here, Bill,"
then he walked up to a supply wagon and told the driver to come off the seat,
handed him a musket, saying, "If you don't know how to shoot it, you better
learn quick; Bill you know how to drive and take care of a team. Get up there
and don't let nothing happen to the team, wagon or what you're hauling. Iff'n
you do, I'll break your damn neck." "That's how I got 'mustered' into the
Confederate army." To the best of my memory that's how Bill Jones told his
story.
A year or so after the end of World War I "Uncle" Bill Jones met with a
handful of the fast dwindling ranks of Confederate veterans for one of their
last get-togethers here in Winn Parish. That afternoon, "Uncle" Bill was
sitting by the stove in the J. M. Hyde's store telling a group of listeners
about his Civil War experiences, especially about the Battle of Alexandria and
Pineville.
"Uncle" Bill said he was right in the middle of the battle. That he was
driving a wagon loaded with corn he had picked up at a place up on the Darrow
with orders to deliver it to the Confederate forces, "in the back of the old
schoolhouse, where the Yankee General Sherman used to be a school teacher," he
said. He said he had just turned off the old river road in what is now
Pineville up into the hills when "all hell" broke loose, Yankee soldiers
coming up from the river from towards Alexandria shooting and Confederate
soldiers coming out of the hilly woods shooting.
He said he was right in the middle of all this shooting ruckus, his team
trying to run away, when a bunch of Confederate soldiers ran up and the
officer in command ordered some of his men to grab the horses and get them and
the wagon load of corn into a nearby two story barn. "Uncle" Bill said, "Jes
as I drive in the hallway of that big barn, a cannon ball from one of them
Yankee gunboats down below the falls busted through the roof, making a hole as
big as a flour barrel."
Continuing he said, "No more cannon balls hit the barn, but them ole minnie
balls kept on peppering the top of the barn jest like a big hail coming down
for I don't know how long. Me and the men helping me held the horses were all
scared jest about as bad as the horses. After awhile the shooting stopped and
everything got quiet 'cept for the hollering and groaning of them what got
shot and weren't already daid."
About the time "Uncle" Bill Jones was winding up the details of the carnage of
the Alexandria-Pineville Civil War battle a recently returned World War I
veteran who had seen service on the battle fields of France, asked with
feigned seriousness, "Uncle" Bill, did anybody really get hurt or killed in
that battle?" "What are you talking about, kilt or get hurt!" snorted "Uncle"
Bill. "Boy! Ain't you never seen that big brick walled graveyard right there
in Pineville, with all them rows of tombstones. Thems all daid Yankee
soldiers. You don't think they killed themselves, do you?"
The World War I veteran said he did not see how either the Confederate or
Yankee soldiers ever killed anyone with muzzle loading cap and ball muskets.
That it was hard to "knock off" the enemy in World War I with rapid firing
rifles, hand grenades, and machine guns. "Uncle" Bill ended the war talk by
saying, "Boy, an ole minnie ball will kill you just as daid as a steel jacket
machine gun bullet, if you get in front of it. Them Johnny Rebs and Yankee
boys knowed how to hit what they shot at. They sure killed a lot of each
other."
According to Mr. George E. Smith, now one of Winnfield's oldest citizens, the
marriage of Matt Jones to Joe Dodson was quite a gala affair. He said the
Bill Jones family then lived out on Huckleberry Ridge, near where Judge
Harwell Allen and retired Congressman A. Leonard Allen now live.
Mr. George E. Smith said the wedding took place some time back in the 1890s
before any railroad had come to Winnfield. He said a lot of the white people
then living here attended the wedding. Mr. Smith said the wedding ceremony
was held outdoors with the Hon. C. M. "Pete" Bevill, then local justice of the
peace, performing the ceremony. He said a wedding feast was served after the
wedding with special tables for the white guests.
Mr. Smith said no one at the wedding feast performed any miracle of changing
water into wine, but that the late Frank L. Shaw, Sr., furnished two pints of
good whisky, when converted into "toddies" livened up the spirits of those
attending the festive occasion.